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Authai the Asian elephant is no Dumbo.
亚洲象真泰不是小飞象。
She can’t fly, but she can do math. At the Ueno Zoo in Japan, scientists
successfully taught the 14-year-old pachyderm to compare numerical quantities
using a computer-controlled touch screen, according to research published Monday
in the Journal of Ethnology.
她不会飞，但她会数学。周一发表在《民族学杂志》上的研究表明，日本上野动物园的科学家们成功地教会了这只14岁的厚皮动物用电脑控制的触摸屏来比较数字数量。
“This study provides the first experimental evidence that non-human animals
have cognitive characteristics partially identical to human counting,” says lead
author Naoko Irie of the Graduate Center for Advance Studies and Japan Society
for the Promotion of Science.
研究生进修中心和日本科学促进会的首席作者直子伊利说：“这项研究提供了第一个实验证据，证明非人类的动物具有部分与人类计数相同的认知特征。”
Using the tip of her trunk, Authai was tasked with comparing on-screen
photos of fruit and choosing which contained the greatest number of bananas,
watermelons and apples.
真泰的任务是利用她的鼻子尖比较屏幕上的水果照片，选出香蕉、西瓜和苹果中数量最多的水果照片。
The elephant was rewarded — yes, with grub — whenever she chose correctly.
She aced the arithmetic challenges 181 out of 271 times, scoring a success rate
of 66.8 percent. That’s better than random chance — and in most math classes, a
passing grade.
只要它选对了，它就会得到食物奖赏。在271次算术测试中，它答对了181次，成功率是66.8%。这比随机答对的几率要高，在大多数数学课上，这是及格分数。
Authai isn’t the first Asian elephant to earn celeb status for human-style
skills. Paya, the painting elephant from Thailand, has cranked out viral videos
for going on a decade, spawning a stampede of imitators.
真泰并不是第一只因类人技能而获得名人地位的亚洲象。有只来自泰国的会画画的大象名叫帕亚，关于它的视频疯传了10年，引发了模仿者的蜂拥效仿。
One superstar of the species lives right at the Bronx Zoo — at least for
now.
其中一个超级明星大象就住在布朗克斯动物园，至少目前住那。
Happy the Asian elephant, famous for being the first of her kind to
demonstrate self-recognition in a mirror, has resided at the zoo for 40
years.
这只名叫“快乐”的亚洲象在这家动物园里生活了40年，它作为第一个在镜子前展示自我认知的大象而闻名。
But earlier this month an activist group called Nonhuman Rights Project
filed a legal petition to have the animal relocated to a sanctuary.
但本月初，一个名为“非人权项目”的激进组织提交了一份法律请愿书，要求将这只动物转移到保护区。
The perkily named pachyderm has been kept in isolation since a 2006
altercation with the zoo’s other two elephants.
这只名叫“快乐”的厚皮大象自2006年与动物园另外两只大象发生冲突以来，一直被隔离着。
Despite assurances from the Bronx Zoo that Happy is content and well cared
for, the animal rights group claims she is being “unlawfully imprisoned.”
尽管布朗克斯动物园保证“快乐”很满足，受到很好的照顾，但动物权利保护组织称她“被非法监禁”。
A spokesperson for the zoo deemed the request “ludicrous.”
动物园的一位发言人认为这一要求“荒唐可笑”。 |
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发表于 2018-11-3 14:13:25